Russell Davies says that "Creative Directors are boring". If he's talking about the "traditional" ego-driven type—I might agree. If he's talking about people like me, people who have not even grown up on the advertising side—then I might beg to differ.
Russell says this:
"When did planning get so deferrential? We're the future, not them."
So is it us (Creatives) VS. them (Planners)? I don't think so. I think Russell is referring to the old guard:
"The encouraging thing is that I think it's mostly a generational thing. Creative Directors like these are going to be grandfathered out by the imminent and inevitable demise of their agencies and the people labouring in their departments don't have the same myopia."
Now here comes the interesting part. While Russell complains about Creative Directors and making statements about Planners being the future—I have found that some of the most interesting people in blogging are out there actively making connections with creatives. Scott from Experience Planner and Dino from Chroma are two examples off the top of my head.
So I think Russell has a legitimate beef with the "old way" and most likely the outdated mentality of big, bloated advertising. But is the future really about the next generation of planners? Or is it broader?
Last excerpt from his post:
"Creatives are in charge. Planners aren't supposed to have ideas, just create space to have ideas."
Ahhhhh... now this is making sense to me. Russell is pissed off at creatives who don't want Planners to have ideas. Well, in my mind—that's not being a true creative. On my teams, I look to project managers, flash developers, and account people for ideas—because I have found out early on that a good idea can come from anywhere.
But as a Creative Director who gets into the whole "insight" thing—I hope Russell would welcome our participation on that side of the equation. The traffic needs to flow both ways.
